Chinese overseas lending / LSO
Lesotho: debt owed to China
In 2021, Lesotho is estimated to have owed China $150m, equal to 6.2% of its GDP, which ranks it 101 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $150m in 2021.
The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021
The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2021, when it rose by $32m.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Lesotho, by year and instrument, 2000 to 2021. Zeros are estimated zeros (no known loans outstanding), not missing values. Methodology
Historical loan records from the 2021 release
These records come from the 2021 HRT Mendeley replication release, not the November 2025 refreshed stock panel charted above. The refresh uses the updated Franz, Horn, Parks, Reinhart and Trebesch methodology, so this table cannot be reconciled to the chart. The earlier release marks 2 loan-level records for Lesotho as part of its debt-estimate sample, spanning 2006 to 2011. Comparable commitments are available for 2 of those loans and sum to $59m. These are gross commitments, not outstanding debt stocks. The stock methodology applies disbursement and amortisation profiles, with imputation where loan terms are missing, so the commitment sum must not be compared with the stock above. See the methodology. Terms are sparse by source: interest rate appears on 0 loans, grace period on 1, maturity on 1, any of the three on 1, and all three together on 0. The earlier file also carries 30 additional project rows for Lesotho outside that sample, so they are not included in this table.
| Year | Project | Commitment, USD | Commitment, source currency | Terms | Creditor | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | China Extends 30 Million USD Soft Loan for Second Phase of Telecoms Project to Lesotho ID: LSO_27 · Source: AidData, JH CARI | $29m | LSL 213,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower SOE |
| 2006 | China Exim Bank loans Lesotho 30 million USD for communications project ID: LSO_21 · Source: AidData, JH CARI | $30m | USD 30,000,000 | rate n/a | grace 5y | maturity 20y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower SOE |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (2021 Mendeley replication loan file). Selection: 2021 replication loan records mapped to Lesotho and flagged DebtEstimateSample = 1 in that release. This is an earlier source universe, not the records used for the November 2025 refreshed stock panel. CommitmentUSD is a gross commitment flow and is not comparable to the charted stock. Commitment stays in its source currency, and ProjectDescription is rendered as free-text data from the file. Methodology
Against what Lesotho reports owing to all creditors
Lesotho reported $1.83bn of total external debt to all creditors in 2021, of which $978m is public and publicly guaranteed. The China estimate is 8.2% of the reported external total and 15.3% of the reported public and guaranteed stock. These are ratios of two different measurements, one estimated and one borrower-reported, and they are not a share of a single consistent total.
| Measure, 2021 | Estimated, owed China | Reported, all creditors | Ratio, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total external debt | $150m | $1.83bn | 8.2% |
| Public and publicly guaranteed | $150m | $978m | 15.3% |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (estimated stocks), and World Bank International Debt Statistics, borrower-reported via the Debtor Reporting System (all-creditor stocks). Selection: estimated external and PPG stock owed to China in 2021 against Lesotho's reported DT.DOD.DECT.CD and DT.DOD.DPPG.CD for the same year. Drawn swap balances are excluded from the estimated column: they are a central-bank liability the Debtor Reporting System's long-term-debt concepts do not carry. Methodology